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About Stephen Grellet

Stephen Grellet was a prominent French Quaker missionary.
He was born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier in Limoges, the son of a counsellor of King Louis XVI. Raised as a Roman Catholic he was educated at the military College of Lyons, and at the age of seventeen he entered the body-guard of Louis XVI. During the French Revolution he was sentenced to be executed, but escaped and eventually fled Europe to the United States in 1795.
Impressed by the writings of William Penn, George Fox, and Quaker beliefs, in 1796 he joined the Society of Friends. He became involved in extensive missionary work across North America and most of the countries of Europe, in prisons and hospitals, and was respectfully granted meetings with many rulers and dignitaries, including Pope Pius VII, Czar Alexander I, and the Kings of Spain and Prussia. He encouraged many reforms in educational policies and in hospital and prison conditions.
In 1804 he married his wife, Rebecca, the daughter of the publisher Isaac Collins.
It is reputed that he was the last living person who could have identified the "Lost Dauphin" heir apparent of France.
He died in Burlington, New Jersey on 16 November 1855 and his body was buried there behind the Quaker Meeting House at 340 High Street.

I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good things, therefore,
that I can do, any kindness that I can show a fellow being, let me do it
now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.